This is the sort of book that always attracts me and, inevitably, disappoints. Thankfully I read a library copy. It is not bad, it is just disappointiThis is the sort of book that always attracts me and, inevitably, disappoints. Thankfully I read a library copy. It is not bad, it is just disappointing. I look for something new and insightful and what I find is predictable, expanded journalism which was probably more interesting and insightful in its original form and published date.
It is not a bad book, just a mediocre one, and that for me is just sad....more
I don't know why this wasn't listed as another edition rather than a separate work but I can't be bothered to complain as it was such a poor book. AnyI don't know why this wasn't listed as another edition rather than a separate work but I can't be bothered to complain as it was such a poor book. Anyway I reproduce my review for the printed version: I was very disappointed in this book - it was just trite and mediocre - I thought it would have something new or interesting to say about family run as against corporate businesses - but honestly there was nothing - you might as well read a good well written history of the robber barons and the gilded age and wallow in the fun of such gross extravagance and people you can piously condemn - this book is neither fish nor fowl - just a waste of time....more
I was tempted to give this book more stars but I couldn't not because it is bad or information is incorrect but because I can't get excited about infoI was tempted to give this book more stars but I couldn't not because it is bad or information is incorrect but because I can't get excited about information that has long been known and written about - that various German business men got behind the Nazis and benefited from them in all sorts of ways including the aryanization of Jewish firms and properties, the looting of businesses and properties in Czechoslovakia the use of slave labour, etc. and that post war trials and denazification trials failed to bring any of these men to justice in any meaningful way - all of this is known and has been written about in better books. That any of this should come as a surprise to anyone reveals not that this is a secret but that there are a great many ignorant people in the world and does not warrant treating this book as anything but a cynical exercise in using 'Nazi' as a way to encourage sales.
Despite all Mr. de Jong's pomposities even he has to admit that very few of the companies he mentions still have direct connections to the families of the Nazis he mentions. That those Germans of the younger generation that do have links still to the firms their Nazi grandfathers or great grandfathers ran or owned are often right wing, unattractively ignorant and with propensity to say stupid things is not surprising. Rich people are rarely intelligent in the sense of having an awareness of others or even of there own families histories. These people may be shits but they aren't Nazis.
At the end of the first quarter of the 21st century I think it is time we broadened are sense of justice betrayed away from simply the failure to prosecute Nazis after the second world war and look at all our failures to face up the cremes in our pasts. How many histories of the UK or its noble families and grand country houses acknowledge how many were built in total or in part with the benefits of profits from the slave trade, slave plantations in the Caribbean or the systematic impoverishment of places like Bengal in India by greedy ancestors who didn't care anymore for the life of poor foreigners, and barely more about poor British or Irish people, who lived lives of indescribable horror to create and support the glittering lifestyle that our heritage industries celebrates.
I have read many biographies of the 18th century eccentric William Beckford author Vathek, builder on Fonthill Abbey, collector of incredible works of art like the Stanislas bureau, how many lines in his many biographies is given over to the source that supported his vastly extravagant lifestyle? Not enough to fill one printed page if extracted from all of them - that is all the attention his sugar plantations get - places were seven working years the average a slave could expect to live. Is it not time that we all look into our pasts and look at the vast advantages we received from all those places now casually termed 'the third world'?
What does any of that have to do with this book? Nothing and everything. Continuously harping back to the Nazis as some absolute evil that absolves any of the rest of us from having to do any retrospective reckoning is getting ever more shabby and thread bare. More people need to read authors like Sven Lindqvist's 'Exterminate All the Brutes' or 'Late Victorian Holocausts' by Mike Davis. I have no wish to relativize or reduce, excuse, diminish, justify or explain away what the Nazis did. But they are not the only ones with questions to answer.
Particularly not a stupid book like this that doesn't even give any attention to the firm of Krupp which was by far the greatest and most well known firm associated with the Nazis simply because the family ceased to have anything to do with the firm in the mid 1960s (though there are plenty of Krupp descendants living lives of great comfort on money from those years). When either the imprisonment of Alfred Krupp or confiscation of his property became problematic it was impossible to legally punish less prominent businessmen (I suggest reading the very interesting chapters in William Manchester's 'The Arms of Krupp' a flawed book in his view of German history but still the best book on the family and firm and on the use of slave labour).
So clearly this book annoyed me - there are plenty of questions to ask about our responsibility for what was done in the past - but silly books with scare titles about 'Nazi Billionaires' is to stupid for words....more
I read this book at the time it came out in 1979 in the original USA Double Day edition and enjoyed it immensely and when I discovered my local librarI read this book at the time it came out in 1979 in the original USA Double Day edition and enjoyed it immensely and when I discovered my local library system still had a copy I got hod of it and gave a quick read so that I could properly rate and review it and, despite how often I find older history books have aged badly, I was immensely impressed with how well this account of the crash of 1929 holds up. This is probably because of the amount of research the authors did (by the way there is a co-author, Max Morgan-Witts) and because they managed to rack down and interview, if not the major participants, their children who had memories and documents, that flesh out this tale. It was, probably, the first 'popular' history the event that had done more than anything else to form the way the US financial markets, banks, etc. functioned in 1979.
I was very impressed with the perspective, knowledge and nuance the authors brought the tale, they are not simplistic. They debunk legends, such as the stories of brokers jumping out of windows, but also tell the real story of the suicides and ruined lives. It also touches on the ramifications of the crash on the rest of the world and how events elsewhere, the Hatry financial scandal in London, contributed to, but did not cause the crash. In the forty years since this book was written scholars have highlighted both longer roots to the crash, particularly the Florida real estate bubble, but this account can still be read with profit and enjoyment.
What is most interesting is that the authors wrote about the financial system that arose out of the reforms that were set up to prevent such an event occurring again as if they were set in stone. That they were self evidently good and a necessary protection for investors. The irony is of course that this book came out only a few years before Reagan began the process of dismantling almost all of the post 1929 Wall Street Crash regulations and government protection was replaced by the 'Market'. That the result would be a succession of scandals starting with the Savings & Loan debacle while Reagan was still in office and down to the sub prime crisis of 2008 would have surprised nobody who read this book. One of the consistent motifs in 1929 was that so many of the major players in the financial markets were certainly elastic in their understanding of financial probity when things were going well and dishonest when things got bad. The 'Market' was a facade hiding skulduggery in 1929 as much as it was and is today. Any young person reading the book is likely to be astounded that the financial mess we are in today has so many corollaries with the past.
With very mild caveats or warnings I would happily recommend this book for anyone to read today. It may not be the best popular history, but it is not a bad one....more
I really enjoyed this book the first time I read it and even at the second reading found it great fun but a second look reveled clearly what I had felI really enjoyed this book the first time I read it and even at the second reading found it great fun but a second look reveled clearly what I had felt the first time around - although chock full of amusing stories and anecdotal information he really doesn't make an argument that a few men the central bankers of Britain, France, Germany and the USA - oh but yeah at that stage the USA didn't have a proper central bank but that is one of the many things he ignores as it is inconvenient to his argument. Of course these bankers (and of them all Montague Norman gets the most coverage others particularly Moreau of the Bank of France get very little page time) were important but by ignoring the politics he tells only part of the story.
At one point he says: '...the neurotic and enigmatic Montagu Norman of the Bank of England; the xenophobic and suspicious Emile Moreau of the Banque de France; the arrogant yet brilliant Hjalmar Schacht of the Reichsbank; and the dynamic Benjamin Strong of the New York Federal Reserve Bank. These men were as prominent then as Alan Greenspan and Hank Paulson are in our time...' and indeed how many people today, outside of financial circles and even there they would be well over middle aged, in 2022 could tell you anything about Greenspan or Paulson? Bankers are important but the days when they had real power ended long before the first world war.
A fascinating, and easily understood account of the creation of the post WWIi economic order which, we are still living with. One of the great strengtA fascinating, and easily understood account of the creation of the post WWIi economic order which, we are still living with. One of the great strengths of this book is that it places plans for what happened after the war back within the story of WWII. What happened at Bretton Woods in 1944 had far greater consequences then the far better know stories of battles and political decisions that garner far more attention because, as the peace of Versailles that ended WWI demonstrated with such lamentable results, that if you don't get the economics sorted out all other decisions are soon rendered obsolete.
If you are interested in WWII, or its post war consequences, or are just curious about how are current international financial system came into existence and how it works (or fails to work) this is book you will find essential reading. I must pay tribute to Mr. Conway's ability to render extremely complex economics into comprehensible language (and I say that as some one who has no grasp of complex mathematics or economic models) without vulgarising or dumbing down. It is rare and splendid talent to make the complex comprehensible....more
I read this book some time in 2012 or 13 - and if I'd reviewed it then I might have given more stars - not a lot more, but more - now I think I am beiI read this book some time in 2012 or 13 - and if I'd reviewed it then I might have given more stars - not a lot more, but more - now I think I am being overly kind with one star. Lewis writes well and entertainingly and explains some of the background to the banking crisis well - but this farago of reductive national character assassination is almost racist in its simplistic self satisfied superior lecturing. Greek monks - like all Greeks apparently - are crooks and work with politicians to bilk taxpayers - wow! What a revelation! It's only a third world country like Greece that you get collusion and corruption between church and state. Gosch we've never heard American politicians doing corrupt things for churchmen have we? Like all instant books on world shattering events it manages to look both idiotic and just plain barmy when he makes predictions about the disasters to come. Oh yes we have! I was tempted to go on but seriously his presentation of the failings of Greeks, Irish and Icelandic people's are so crude as to just annoying - and although he goes on to predict all sorts of disasters for all these new third world countries and Europe as a whole the amazing thing is ten years later we have all managed to survive while in the USA they elected Trump to be their president and savior - who is the real third world country?...more
I was very disappointed in this book - it was just trite and mediocre - I thought it would have something new or interesting to say about family run aI was very disappointed in this book - it was just trite and mediocre - I thought it would have something new or interesting to say about family run as against corporate businesses - but honestly there was nothing - you might as well read a good well written history of the robber barons and the gilded age and wallow in the fun of such gross extravagance and people you can piously condemn - this book is neither fish nor fowl - just a waste of time....more
This is very much a politicians book written in response to the economic crisis of 2008 but if he was trying to tie together past and present he does This is very much a politicians book written in response to the economic crisis of 2008 but if he was trying to tie together past and present he does a poor job. It is mostly a look at UK/USA economic policy - the title is misleading in all sorts of ways. It wasn't a great book when I read in 2015 and honestly I don't think anyone would have a reason to read it now (2023)....more
It is perfectly good and adequate book on the 2008 financial crisis also looking at financial crisis in general, in a historical context. It is all veIt is perfectly good and adequate book on the 2008 financial crisis also looking at financial crisis in general, in a historical context. It is all very interesting but limited because it is about, or in response to the most recent financial crisis. Although it talks of the lack of memory in financial institutions when he goes back in history his examples, though interesting, are not really relevant because the differences in cultures and financial institutions are to great.
I read this book in 2014, I can't see any reason to read it in 2023, there are bound to be better accounts of the financial crisis and certainly better accounts of past financial crisis....more
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